Polar bears migrate throughout
their entire lives, every day except when sleeping or resting: from
the southern point of Greenland upwards along the east coast, going
beyond the north pole, across into Siberia, then continuing into
Alaska. From there, across the islands situated near Canada on again
to southern Greenland. They migrate over these enormous distances with
the ice, on whose floes they travel.

They survive the winter by
sleeping. At the beginning of November polar bears dig themselves into
a snow cave and become locked in by piles of snow. The heat of the
bear itself balances at a body temperature just above 0o Celsius
- not even the severest storm can reach or disturb it. When the bears
emerge in March from their snow dens, they are so thin that the people
in northern regions believed for a long time that there were two
species of white bear.

First
published in this format in Nova Irlanda Esperantisto No 63 2004